


Asceticism

by shieldivarius



Series: Protocol [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Established Relationship, Multi, Post Avengers (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-09 08:34:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieldivarius/pseuds/shieldivarius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asceticism: A perfect word to describe Phil's going home alone at night. Again.</p><p>or; </p><p>Maria Hill is having none of your fraternization bullshit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do want to say right off the top that Maria Hill is not the enemy in this fic, however much Phil wants to blame her. The enemy is regulation and protocol and the circumstance of finding yourself in a situation where you've fallen for someone you're not supposed to want and aren't supposed to have, but who you go after anyway because life is short and little bits of genuine happiness are few.
> 
> This is also intended mostly as a character study, so there are a lot of little chunks all over the place and there is no actual ending or resolution. In fact the ends comes very, very abruptly.

Maria Hill was a hard-ass, and Phil Coulson respected her for it. He respected how far she’d risen in S.H.I.E.L.D.; how she stuck to her morals and sense of justice; how she believed in what their organization stood for, both in terms of the civilians it protected and the way it stood by its own.

In the year since the Loki incident, Maria had slowly been taking over Fury’s day-to-day Director duties, with the WSC taking up all of Fury’s time, otherwise.

Then, one-month prior, Fury had up and disappeared altogether. 

If Hill knew anything about where he’d gone she was keeping tight-lipped about it. Phil certainly hadn’t been told anything, and apparently lacked the clearance to get any information on the subject, and that was worrying enough, at least when he had the time to spend on worrying what could have caused Fury to go AWOL.

‘When he had the time’ being key there. It was hard to worry too much about your absentee boss—friend, or not—when you were already struggling to keep your house sane and in order. For that matter, at this point Phil would even settle for keeping his house _in his house_. 

He respected that Hill was a hard-ass. Respected her all the way up until that attitude interfered in his personal life (yes, he had one, thank you), and that was where his respect stopped dead.

Hill—or someone in her office, he hadn’t snooped around enough yet to figure out where the order had come from—was laying down the law on intra-agency fraternization. The rules had always been in the handbook, had always been brought out against anyone stupid enough to flaunt that they were breaking them—Phil himself had written up a junior agent or two in the last few years, feeling like a hypocrite all the while, but doing his job anyway. Going after agents who were taking every precaution to ensure their ‘extra-curriculars’ didn’t interfere with their work, though, that was new. 

New, and making his life a whole lot more unsettled when they’d just been starting to make inroads after the disaster that Loki had wreaked.

Phil sighed and put his pen away after signing off on the last page of Natasha’s latest mission report. Normally, previously, she would have hung around, either in his office or in the gym, while he went over the final paperwork. Today she’d gone straight—

Actually, he wasn’t entirely sure where she had gone, but he knew she hadn’t loitered around waiting for him. Wherever she was, she’d be with Clint. Maybe out at his apartment in Bed-Stuy, maybe at her own in Avenger’s Tower, but with him, and not waiting for Phil to come home to the apartment they shared in Lower Manhattan (Stark paid for it, had started doing so when he’d been ‘brought back from the dead’. He certainly couldn’t have afforded it out of his salary).

The three of them had decided it was for the best if they mostly kept apart until the crusade was over. _Everyone_ at S.H.I.E.L.D. knew Clint and Natasha had been involved for years, whether they had any proof of it or not. No one knew Phil was involved with them as well, and Clint and Natasha had quickly decided it would stay that way.

He’d spent exactly one night with them since Hill’s memo had come out. One night in twenty-eight. Sleeping alone and knowing they were cuddled up together somewhere in the city wasn’t as bad as sleeping alone and knowing he’d sent one or both of them into an active warzone, but it was starting to get pretty close.

At least in warzones they were in almost constant contact.

Phil groaned and put his head into his hands.

 

Twelve nights ago, before Natasha had left for Belarus, she’d held his face between her hands and looked him straight in the eye. He’d propped himself in a half-seated position against the pillows, Clint sprawled out next to him with one leg on top of Phil’s, foot caressing his ankle. Natasha lay, bracketing him on the left, on her side, propped up on one arm. Leaning in, caressing his cheeks with her thumbs, she pressed her lips to his.

“We love you. I know this is hard.”

Clint grunted. She shushed him.

“It’s hard for us, too. But this isn’t going to change anything. Maybe it would have, before,” before Loki. “But not now. We will weather this and come out stronger for it.”

He leaned forward, took her wrists in his hands and returned the kiss. Then he moved to leave and a blink later they were both on top of him, pinning him to the bed.

“Wha’re you doin’?” Clint muttered into his collarbone. He’d just gotten home from a solo mission himself, still hadn’t rested after it, and was nearly asleep.

“You’ll stay here, with us, tonight,” Natasha said. “Where you belong.”

 

They’d been at Clint’s that night, not home, so it hadn’t been quite right. The memory kept his heart warm, though; even when—like now—he was letting himself into an empty, too large apartment. Angela, the sixteen-year-old living next door, was having a shouting match with someone—probably her mother, Clara, they fought a lot—so at least the place wasn’t completely silent. 

Then he got to the bedroom, and aside from the thump of his suit jacket landing where he’d thrown it, it was.

 

Phil walked into his office the next morning to find Hill sitting at his desk.

“I was planning on delivering that first thing this morning,” he said, nodding at the file she was reading.

“I had some time,” she replied, and closed it. “And I won’t later, so it seemed like a better idea not to waste it.”

Phil had entertained asking Clint and Natasha to come into his office for breakfast. Maybe he’d hit the canteen and drop muffins off at their cubicles instead. It seemed safer, and he could classify it under ‘forcing assets to remember that they were human, too.’

Natasha and Clint rarely actually forgot to eat, but he could use a legitimate excuse to go see them.

“I’m going to assume you didn’t come to chase me down for paperwork that isn’t due yet, though. How can I help you, Maria?” He hung his coat on the rack in the corner, straightened the suit jacket under it, told himself he wasn’t at all bothered that she’d given him the choice of standing or taking the subordinate position on the opposite side of the desk.

It wouldn’t normally have been a problem. She was his superior and he respected her authority. 

Except he knew why she was here, and it looked like that memo _had_ come straight from Hill’s mouth.

“Agent Barton’s and Agent Romanoff’s files haven’t been updated with HR-42c(1)s.”

Ah, there it was. At least she’d cut to the chase.

“I wasn’t aware we were filing disciplinary forms against agents who hadn’t merited them, Director Hill.”

She planted her hands on the desk and actually pushed herself forward and half out of the chair so she could lean over and stare him down. “Coulson, you cannot actually expect me to believe that Barton and Romanoff aren’t screwing at every free moment.”

They did, but it was always, always more about the physical contact and affection than the actual sex—not that they didn’t love the sex, too.

“Director, I don’t think that what agents of Barton and Romanoff’s calibre do while off duty is any business of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s.”

“We can’t play favourites.”

“Everyone plays favourites,” he said, lips quirked in a wry smile. “And if we aren’t going to play favourites because they’re the best strike team we have, we should possibly consider doing so because they’re members of the Avengers.”

“The Avengers are currently on inactive status. Coulson, if you aren’t going to fill out those forms and give your agents a warning, then I will.”

“Director—Maria. What’s your plan beyond that? What happens when Barton and Romanoff ignore the warning?” He didn’t think she would actually say it, for a moment, but then her face hardened.

“They’re too valuable, and too dangerous, to be let go, but they work just fine both with other teams and solo. I _will_ station one of them elsewhere.”

He nodded, keeping his features pleasant, and reminding himself that Maria was not the villain here, regardless of how it seemed to him. “As I still disagree with the action, I request that my signature be kept off the documents.”

Hill stood. “Only because you only tried to tell me once that they weren’t involved.”

Phil smiled. “I only said they didn’t merit the write-up. Is this likely to go to a disciplinary hearing?”

“That depends on them,” Hill said. She took the file she’d been reading with her when she left.

She’d warmed Phil’s chair. That was probably a weird thing to notice as he sat down, his chair wasn’t usually that cool to begin with and his pants were thick enough, but now his chair was warm beneath him when he’d only just sat down for the day.

Damn, he got melancholy when he tried to figure out what their future held.

Determined to at least find coffee before he faced what promised to be a very, very trying day, Phil left the office again. He’d come back when his chair had cooled.

 

Recovering, physically, from Loki’s assault had taken him months. He still had the occasional twinge in his chest, or bouts of shortness of breath that he was never sure were actual, physical lung malfunction or PTSD. They amounted to the same thing when you couldn’t breathe, anyway.

Natasha had bought him new shirts and had them all tailored looser than he had worn them before the incident. Less restrictive that way, even if he’d had to get used to the new look.

Clint’s recovery from Loki’s mind control had taken longer, been slower, and Phil knew that, as much as Clint wanted to be back the way he’d been before, it was never going to happen that way. The cold sweats and night terrors might stop, eventually. He may even one day be able to go days, even weeks, without thinking about Loki. But he would never entirely return to the class clown he’d been before the Battle of New York.

He and Natasha had been doing their best to assure him that they loved him no matter what he thought he deserved. That they weren’t going anywhere, and that nothing could tear the three of them apart—Natasha had been especially firm on this. Wonderful Natasha, who was capable of giving more of herself than either of them once she trusted deeply enough. 

All it had taken to pull them apart was S.H.I.E.L.D. coming down hard with the regulations. It was almost embarrassing.


	2. Chapter 2

At 3 o’clock that afternoon, Phil stopped by Clint’s desk with a coffee tray in one hand and a mission file in the other. He set the file down and Clint eyed it while Phil tugged a coffee cup from the tray and passed it to him.

“Am I going to hate this job?” he asked after a long sip of coffee.

“In and out with a rifle.”

Clint made a face. “What, no bow?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t want to leave a calling card on this one. Read the file and come by for briefing tomorrow, 0900.”

Barton propped his feet up on his desk, eyeing the second, untouched cup of coffee. His eyes cut across the bullpen to Natasha’s empty desk.

“She’s down in the gym if you want to deliver that. Probably beating up on a tag team of junior agents.” He said it casually enough, but something on his face—and his obvious absence from her side—gave Phil pause.

“Director Hill has spoken with the two of you, I assume?”

“Couldn’t have given us a little warning?” Bitterness in his voice now. “When’d she spring it on you?”

“This morning. I apologize—I told the Director that the allegations were unwarranted and that whatever your relationship, it doesn’t affect your work.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “Yeah, thanks for trying, Sir. Hill’s gonna leave photocopies of the forms on your desk, and we need _supervision_ if we’re going to be sparring. Like we’re going to start necking in the weight room, or something.”

A quickly stifled bark of laughter from the other side of the cubicle wall. 

“Yeah, you would find that funny, O’Bryan!” Clint called back.

“I assume I count as supervision,” Phil said, refraining from rolling his eyes as well, but only barely. Chaperones. The very last people in this organization who needed to be chaperoned were Natasha and Clint.

“Nope. She made that pretty clear. Thought Nat was gonna jump her.”

Phil shook his head. “I’ll take this to Agent Romanoff. My office tomorrow. Don’t forget.”

Maria was right in her assessment of Phil’s inclination toward letting Clint and Natasha do whatever the hell they wanted when they were alone—regardless of where they were. What she was wrong about, _offensively_ wrong about, was the level of self-control the two could exhibit (yes, even Clint). _Had_ been exhibiting.

Case in point, he knew they’d been chaste, bordering on abstinent (for them) for the better part of the month. He could tell by the way Natasha looked at him when they passed each other in the halls and no one else was around. (And that was painful enough in itself, because they’d decided that if he needed to suffer, so did they, and the both of them had little enough love in their lives. They should be experiencing it while they had it—it wasn’t like their lives were safe.)

“Hang around and give her a workout, too!” Clint called after him. Phil cringed, wondering if anyone else had caught the innuendo. It wasn’t exactly subtle.

Damn, he missed them.

 

He found Natasha wrapping her knuckles by one of the heavy bags in the gym. She was the only one present, but he’d passed more than one grimacing, low ranking agent on the way down here. He pressed his hand to the side of her coffee cup to make sure the liquid inside was still warm, lifted it out and handed it over to her as he approached.

She gave the heavy bag a long look, sighed and took the cup from him.

They sat down in silence on a bench against the wall, the distance between them perfectly calculated to be entirely work appropriate—Natasha wasn’t sloppy, and she’d been even more careful lately.

She sat drinking the coffee in silence, finally putting the cup down to glare at his hands, fiddling with the cardboard cup tray.

“Do I need to have a word with Clint?” she asked, voice terse.

“I knew Director Hill was going to confront you and it was irresponsible of me, as your handler, to not have told you.”

Her laugh was throaty and low. “I don’t need your apology, Coulson.” Her amused tone softened the sting he felt at the words. He shouldn’t be bothered, knew there were many, many layers of acting there, but…

Her fingers brushed his shoulder as she rose and crossed to the heavy bag. “Barton and I appreciate the protection, but we hardly need it. We’d really rather you not put your job on the line.”

Phil frowned at her. “Barton mentioned you’re being watched.” 

“Director Hill would rather we see other people.” She smiled at him, sly and amused. “And for the moment we can deal with that. But not even for the sake of her crusade against fraternization would she split us up. Barton and I are the best thing in this place.”

By the word ‘crusade’ she’d started punctuating her phrases with punches. He watched her carefully. Posture and form were as good as ever, but her shoulders were tight and her jaw was clenched.

“Natasha,” he murmured.

She shot him a sharp look, dropped her arms to her sides and stalked back over to him, right in the middle of her reps.

“Phil,” she growled, bending forward so she was right up in his face. Her eyes glittered, dangerous. _‘Don’t fuck this up. We’re working too hard and suffering too much for you to fuck this up,’_ said her features.

He clenched a fist to keep from reaching up and stroking the crease in her brow.

 

Clint left for his solo mission the next day, two hours after his briefing. Phil was booked on the next commercial flight out to Shanghai to lead the mission, where he’d meet up with the ground team serving as Barton’s backup, and where he’d be the voice in his ear for the duration of the mission.

They arrived home, on schedule, three days later. Clint had fallen asleep on Phil’s shoulder on the chopper back, excusable with the close quarters they were stuck in. Phil didn’t have to fake his fondly exasperated (and amused) look.

He nudged Clint awake when the chopper landed. 

“Whuh—“ Clint muttered.

“We’re back in New York. Go home and sleep, Hawkeye.” 

Clint groaned, half sat up, then let himself fall back onto Phil’s shoulder without even attempting to unfasten his harness. “C’n you carry me, babe?” he mumbled.

Phil glanced around, glad his sunglasses hid the furtive look. He was fairly certain the still rotating blades outside and the rushing of the wind should’ve covered Clint’s voice. It had been low, the microphone in his helmet shouldn’t have picked it up—should’ve been turned off after their in-flight debrief. The pilot and navigator had glanced at one another, though—unless that was just Phil’s own paranoia—and that wouldn’t end well.

“Up, Barton,” he barked.

Clint snapped to attention scrambled to disembark the helicopter. Phil couldn’t tell if he was aware of what he’d said, or not.

 

Sometime after midnight, Phil heard the click of his front door lock opening, heard the jingling of the chain. His hand went to the holster on his headboard, slid the gun from its pocket. He levelled it at the closed bedroom door, hearing the chain fall and clatter, open. The front door shut, and for a moment he didn’t hear anything at all.

Phil rose slowly from the bed. The hall light flicked on, casting brightness in the gap between floor and door.

There was movement in the kitchen; the faucet running and then the clicking of the pilot light on the stove.

“I know you heard me come in,” Natasha called down the hall.

He hadn’t realised how tense he was until he relaxed all at once. Looking down at the gun in his hand, and feeling a little ridiculous (of course it was Natasha. And she had a key. That hadn’t been the lock being picked), Phil joined her in the kitchen. 

Her lips quirked in a smirk at the gun he set down on the counter.

“Clint?” he asked, then cleared his throat, trying to get rid of the sleep-roughened sound of it.

“Exhausted, sleeping off the job. He won’t be in tomorrow, I hope he’s already debriefed.”

Her gaze slid up and down his body as she spoke, and this was an old ritual—making sure nothing was wrong, making sure everyone had returned hale and whole after the mission.

“He has,” Phil replied. “Natasha, what are you—“

“I miss you when you’re gone,” she said, with a lift of one shoulder. “And…” she trailed off, turned to the stove and switched off the burner when the kettle started to scream.

“And?” he prompted, keeping his distance. She tossed teabags into mugs and poured water over them, staring into the cups afterward like they held the answer to some question she wasn’t sharing with him. 

“Clint and I have been fighting, more often than not, lately. It isn’t… comfortable.” She wrapped her arms around her waist, as though she could reclaim some of that comfort, or maybe hold in the rest and stop it from escaping.

“Fighting about what, sweetheart?” he asked, finally crossing the kitchen and taking her into his arms. Her skin was cold below the cap sleeves of her t-shirt. She’d taken her coat off when she’d come in—probably hung it up in the closet. No doubt had noticed he didn’t bother anymore.

“Anything. Everything,” she mumbled. She rested her forehead against his shoulder, and let him hold her. He stood there, hands on her waist, making small circles with his fingers on her back. After a long few minutes, she hooked her arms around his neck and pressed herself more solidly up against him.

His nose was right up against her hair, the scent of her shampoo grounding him, bringing him back from being Agent Coulson and to just being Phil. Phil, who felt like the luckiest man in the world, being one of the few the woman in his arms trusted absolutely. Phil who wondered now if this was where it all ended—where their luck ran out.

“I think this is a battle we’re going to have to step up to and fight,” Natasha said, breaking the embrace after a press of her lips to his cheek. He caught her arm, tugged her back toward him and caught her lips with his. She let him manhandle her, turn her and press her back until she was between him and the solid wall of pantry cupboards opposite.

“Are you staying?” he asked, voice low when they broke apart. Her hands played with the hair at the nape of his neck. His were trapped, pressed into the pantry door by the curve of her butt.

“Yes,” she whispered. “You’ve looked so lonely, darling. Clint can do without me for a night.”

“You’re sure he—“

A finger wrapped around his hair and tugged. “I’m sure,” she said.

Phil deflated, bringing his head down to rest it on her shoulder. Her fingers pressed into the tense muscles of his shoulders.

“Tea, then bed, I think,” she said. He made a noise in response that he hoped communicated agreement.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning: Mentions of a very high on prescription drugs Phil and Clint making a sexual advance on him. It's quickly put a stop to by Natasha.

Natasha and Clint— _especially_ Clint—tended to show blatant disregard for recovery times and their own injured bodies whenever they were hurt. Each had very particular ideas regarding what serious injuries were—Clint paid more attention when his hands or arms were at risk, for example—and unless their injuries met those criteria they’d be out of the hospital early unless they absolutely couldn’t walk. Or were stopped. 

Phil had caught on early—back when it was just the two of them and his relationship with the pair was strictly work-related—that part of the reason they fought so hard was so the other would be forced to bully them into obeying. It wasn’t (entirely, at least) that they didn’t care they were hurt. It was a game that demanded care and affection from the other when otherwise they wouldn’t get it. A game they played because both of them had been so damaged that, like children, acting out was the only way they knew how to get what they needed.

In the months after Phil’s release from the hospital, when he still hadn’t been able to do much because of the carefully patched, slowly healing hole in his chest, he’d had the full weight of their attention on him almost all of the time. They’d been worried, so damn worried, and when they weren’t both present they took shifts, in constant contact with him or not far away.

About two weeks into him being home, though, Phil had noticed a definite tension humming through them, seated on either side of him as they were. Phil’d been spending a half hour a day sitting up and watching television, not able to pay much attention to the shows (they were brainless anyway), high on painkillers because it still hurt too much to do anything at all without them.

He’d been high and fuzzy from the opiates that day, too, but something had clicked, somehow, anyway.

“You two aren’t having sex.” He was still staring at the television as he said it, couldn’t focus long enough on anything to shift his gaze away from straight ahead in order to see what their reactions might be. In hindsight, it was pretty obvious, but _nothing_ had been obvious to him at the time. Except, apparently, the lacking sex life of his partners.

“Is that a problem?” Natasha asked. She muted the T.V.

“No.” He thought past the fog in his brain for a moment. If they didn’t want to have sex, then they certainly didn’t need to have sex, but. “Yes.”

Clint caressed Phil’s knee, then the inside of his thigh. Natasha slapped the hand away with a hiss.

“Maybe when you’re better,” she said, and that didn’t make any sense to him but it’d been the end of the conversation until he was lucid. He still wasn’t sure why he could remember that part at all; most of his recovery time was an absolute blank blur. He’d never been that high in his life.

 

Phil slept soundly that night, waking only once when Natasha shifted in her sleep and he reached out to the empty spot where Clint usually laid on his other side. He woke before her the next morning, which was rare, greeted by her hair in his mouth, head on his shoulder. It couldn’t have been comfortable, but he moved as little as possible as he cleared the hair from his face.

She woke anyway, conscious all at once, and blinked and smiled up at him.

“Morning,” she murmured. She sat up and stretched, arching her back, arms in the air, breasts jutting out beneath her nightgown. “Sleep well?”

“Better than,” he said with a smile. “If you hang around, I’ll make breakfast.”

He played those words back through his mind at the alarmed look on Natasha’s face. Couldn’t see anything wrong with them, though clearly she had.

“It’s Saturday. Where would I be going?” she asked. Every word was spaced out carefully, wary, and Phil didn’t know exactly what had just happened between them, but clearly one of them was misunderstanding something. And with the way Natasha was posed, like a deer caught in the headlights, whatever she’d gotten from that one simple question was not what he’d intended on communicating.

Natasha had an exceptionally well-developed ability to read people, until her own emotions got in the way.

He shuffled closer to her on the bed, noticing her gaze locked on his knee, the closest part of him to her. He stopped moving before he made contact.

“I thought you might want to get back and make sure Clint’s okay, that’s all.”

“Clint knows where to find us,” she said. “Phil, what do you think is going on here?”

He frowned at her. “I’d only figured you came for the night, and were going to head back out there, or to your place…” he trailed off.

She was shaking her head slowly, sleep-mussed red locks bouncing around her cheeks.

“It’s too much. It’s too long, and both Clint and I are ready to make Hill eat her words. We don’t want you to feel abandoned, or neglected, and we’re not doing a very good job of making that happen.” She ran a hand down his arm, slipped from the bed and padded across the carpet and into the en-suite. “Unless you wanted me to go,” she added, sounding small.

“Absolutely not,” he said fiercely.

She peeked around the door and smiled at him. Phil returned it, a happy, warm sensation burning in his chest. “Will you text Clint and tell him to come home?”

 

Home. 

Clint walked through the door, dropped a duffel bag beside it, shucked his coat off, and the place instantly felt like home again.

“Kitchen!” Phil called over his shoulder. Trudging, and Clint came into view, stopping and leaning against the wall just at the entrance to the kitchen.

“Favourite people, no work to rush to, and bacon. Did Shanghai kill me? Am I dead?”

“Don’t joke,” Natasha warned, crossing the room and going up on her toes to kiss him. 

Phil finished shovelling the last of the eggs onto a platter before joining them. They parted and hugged him between them, Natasha pressing against his back and Clint at his front. Clint kissed him, sloppy and desperate and needy, like they hadn’t seen each other less than 12 hours before, didn’t see each other everyday. His arms extended past Phil, hands on Natasha and pulling her closer, forming bars that kept Phil in place, enclosed by them on all sides. Natasha laid butterfly kisses on his back, barely a tickle through his shirt. 

Phil felt loved and wanted and _oh god he had missed this_. He returned Clint’s kiss in earnest, one hand gripping the archer’s shoulder, the other waving in the air, flailing and trying to reach for Natasha, finally finding her hip.

“Breakfast,” he managed to gasp when they broke apart for air. Natasha’s fingers danced down along Clint’s arms, and she wasn’t pressed quite so firmly against him when she wasn’t reaching beyond to touch Clint as well.

“We should eat,” she agreed. Her tone was playful, confident, and gave more of a sexual undertone to the simple phrase than anyone should have been able to give. A far cry from the insecurity she’d shown that morning. He turned and kissed her for it, her tongue mirroring his, her hands resting at his waist, clenching at the same time as she moaned low in her throat.

Clint shifted minutely, moving to stand flush against Phil’s back, his forehead resting against the back of Phil’s neck, Clint’s hair tickling at his hairline. The bulge of Clint’s erection brushed against him. One of Natasha’s hands dropped from his waist, and he gasped into her mouth at the sensation of her passing fingers along the curve of his ass before she turned her hand to cup Clint. The back of her hand kept contact with him as she fondled the archer.

“Okay?” Natasha whispered. Phil managed to nod. Clint gasped ‘ _Yes_ ’ in his ear, breathing growing less controlled. He reached around between Phil and Natasha, fingers sliding between Natasha’s legs and making her shiver. Then his hand cupped around Phil’s penis, hardening in his pants, his fingers running up and down it and it was Phil’s turn to take a shuddering breath. He slipped his hand down Natasha’s side and ran his fingers back and forth along the cleft between her legs.

It was sloppy and awkward and decidedly unsexy but they were together and that made it right and desperate and grounding. Phil had _missed_ them, and he didn’t know what tomorrow was going to bring—or Monday, anyway—and _fuck_ all that meant was that they needed to get everything they could, everything they needed, out of today.

“Gotta stop,” Clint gasped. “Breakfast, then bedroom.”

Natasha gave a low laugh. “Too intense for you, baby?” she purred.

Their hands had stilled, dropped from more sensitive body parts to caress each other’s waists, each of them making sure to keep in contact with the other.

“Oh, you do _not_ want to challenge me, sweetheart.” 

She raised her eyebrows, mocking.

Phil nudged them toward the cooling food laid out on the counter.

“Both of you. Eat. Now.”

Natasha reached back, cupped a hand at the base of his neck, and tugged him along with them.

 

Breakfast was rushed; only a little bit of the reason for that was because the food was cold by the time it landed on their plates. An inhaler by nature, Clint was finished before either of them, and he kept darting looks toward the bedroom that had Phil eating as quickly as he could manage while Clint was holding onto one of his hands. He’d pressed their palms together and entwined Phil’s fingers with his own, and Phil stroked a thumb over and over across the back of his hand, awkwardly scooping eggs onto his fork and eating with the other. Natasha looked on fondly.

As soon as they were both done, Clint rose up out of his chair and pulled Phil along behind him. “C’mon, Nat,” he said when it took her a moment to move. She stacked the dirty plates and nodded toward the door.

“Go. I’ll catch up.”

Clint gave her a long look, then shrugged and continued with Phil down the hall. Natasha’s expression remained fond, watching them until they passed through the bedroom door and out of sight. Phil wasn’t left with much attention to spare for what Natasha might have been up to, after that.

Clint pushed him up against the wall as soon as they cleared the doorway. His hips pressed firmly against Phil’s, hands flat against the wall on either side of his head. He laid frantic little kisses on Phil’s jaw, making soft noises in his throat. Phil brought a hand up and tangled his fingers in Clint’s hair, thumb pressing circles into the nape of his neck.

“Missed you, babe.”

“I’m right here, Clint,” he murmured.

“Now,” Clint said, tone not expressing much faith that that would continue to be the case. His hands slid down Phil’s sides, ran along his waistband to fumble at the button on his jeans.

Phil dropped his hands down to hold Clint’s, still them. “All weekend, at least, barring an emergency.”

Clint leaned forward and kissed him, lips curved up in a grin. “Let’s be outta reach of emergencies.”


	4. Chapter 4

Clint pressed him into the wall, kissing and sucking at Phil’s neck. His fingers hooked in Phil’s waistband and pulled their hips together, thick arms brushing against Phil’s chest. Phil’s fingers dug into Clint’s waist, his head tilted to the side, breath harshening when Clint’s kisses turned into nips. 

He fumbled with the edges of Clint’s t-shirt, slipping his fingers underneath the fabric and against the tightly muscled skin beneath. Clint pulled back just long enough to pull his shirt off over his head and fling it behind him, Phil’s shirt balled in his hands and following after a couple insistent tugs. The shirt had barely landed before Clint surged forward and pressed his lips against Phil’s.

Everything about Clint’s motions was jerky and needy and desperate for contact, down to the sharp bite on Phil’s lower lip that had him parting them and allowing Clint’s tongue to slide alongside his own. Phil held him tightly, one hand clutching at his shoulder, the other running up through the archer’s hair. Clint had a hand locked on the back of Phil’s neck, using the leverage to hold him in place while he devoured his mouth.

It was rough and a little violent and not something Phil minded, but usually he tried to soothe Clint and Natasha away from violent sex because god knew there was more than enough violence in their lives. It didn’t need to follow them into the bedroom.

This screamed desperation though, and Phil thought it might be contagious, rising feelings within him demanding they not stop, that he not let Clint go, even as the archer pulled back, gasping for air. Clint glanced around and frowned.

“Nat?” he called. No response.

Phil brushed his fingers up Clint’s sides, leaning forward to lay a kiss on his shoulder where a light bruise had formed, probably from rifle kickback. Clint shivered, and Phil peered up at him.

“She can’t complain if I’m not the only one who hasn’t bothered shaving yet, right?” he asked with a grin.

Phil chuckled, running a hand across his unshaven cheek and the couple day’s growth there. Clint’s was worse. Clint probably haven’t bothered shaving the morning they shipped out.

“As long as you’ve showered in the fourteen hours you’ve been back, Barton, I won’t complain this time.” 

Natasha’s arms came into view, wrapping around Clint’s chest, her thumbs brushing over his nipples.

“You’re wearing too many clothes, sweetheart.”

“Mmm, come to bed and take them off of me, then,” she murmured.

Phil had been too focused on her hands on Clint’s chest to notice how tall she was standing until she strutted away, impossibly steep, thin heels on her feet. Her hands were folded at her lower back, fingers crooked and beckoning them to follow her.

Phil could see how, pressed against his back, Clint might’ve thought she was more clothed than them. But the tiny little bit of black lingerie she had on—and Nat almost _never_ did lingerie—and the thigh-high stockings didn’t really count.

“Fuck, Nat.”

Fuck, indeed.

She perched on the edge of the bed, smiling wickedly as they walked forward, the baby doll she wore revealing a valley of pale skin stretching down to below her navel, tied closed at her breasts with a bow. Clint reached her first, kissing her and tipping her backward, Phil managing to get into place in time for her head to land in his lap. Phil ran his hands through the ends of her hair, stroked her shoulders where they lay across his shins.

Clint rose up enough that Phil could see Natasha’s face again, her lips swollen a bit. Clint had one of his hands slipped beneath the near-sheer fabric Natasha was clad in and he played with one of her breasts, pinching and twisting the nipple in his fingers.

Her hands came up over her head and fiddled with the button and zipper of his jeans until they parted, reached her fingers into the waistband of his briefs and felt around, brushing all of the sensitive spots she could, until his erection popped free over the top.

She bit her lip, starting to run her fingers up and down him, the soft warm pads of her fingers and occasional brush of her fingernails bringing his breath faster. Clint had undone the ribbon holding the top of her camisole closed and had his head bowed, biting and sucking at one breast while he kept pinching at the other.

Natasha clenched her fist, hand falling beside her head and away from Phil, and she let out a moan. Clint’s attention to her breasts became rougher, more rushed, and Phil could hear the faint wet sound of Clint’s fingers pumping in and out of her. She let out a long, soft breath a moment later, shaking between them in silent orgasm. 

Clint kissed her forehead, then leaned forward and brushed rough lips across the head of Phil’s cock and rolled to one side so he wasn’t straddling Natasha any longer. She was still half off the bed, thong pushed down to mid-thigh, top parted to the skirt and only held in place by the ribbon tied behind her neck. 

Natasha smiled up at Phil when he looked down.

“What are you thinking?” she asked. She hadn’t made any move to right herself, and he lifted her head gently and moved from under her. He slid from the bed and crouched down at her feet, caressing one ankle, then the other, running his fingers along the straps holding her shoes in place.

“These are creative methods of torture,” he said, and it wasn’t _really_ meant to be a joke because they really did look painful, but she laughed throatily, and Clint let out a snort. Like none of them knew that real torture was—but they kept work out of the bedroom, for the most part, so maybe it had been a misplaced comment.

Phil kissed her right ankle above the strap and undid it, eased the shoe off of her foot and slid it under the bed (so no one would step on it) then repeated the process with the other. He cupped her ankles, trailed his hands up her legs as he rose and tugged the thong off, dropping it to the floor before he finished, fingers resting on her hipbones below the tiny little skirt. She’d sat up, and she leaned in and kissed him.

“You always take such good care of us, Phil.”

He smiled, touched her hair. “I try.”

Clint cleared his throat, drawing their attention to him. The corners of Natasha’s lips quirked upward, and Phil thought his might’ve as well—Clint had stripped out of his pants and was giving them a thoroughly impatient expression, made ridiculous by his lying there nude. 

Natasha crawled up to meet him.

“Is no one touching you, darling?” she asked, sitting back on her ankles, hands on her knees, not making any motion to remedy the situation.

Phil thought Clint might be trying to glare at her, but the expression was a little pathetic.

“You don’t get to tease when he’s already brought you off,” he said, brushing his lips against her ear.

“Any other time,” Clint grunted. He had his fists clenched. “But not tonight.”

Phil crawled forward, ran his hands up Clint’s legs the same way he had Natasha’s, and then kept going, caressing the hard planes of his stomach until he reached his nipples. Phil rolled them between his fingers, kneeling above him to get a better angle, and Clint threw his head back into the pillows and groaned.

Small hands at Phil’s hips pulled down his jeans, and with a bit of assistance—lifting his legs at the right time—Natasha managed to get them and his underwear off. Clint reached up and wrapped a hand around his erection, pumped it a couple of times, and Phil groaned.

“I want you inside me, babe. And then me in Tasha. Unless you’d rather, Tash,” he added, and Phil didn’t fucking care right now and tried not to choose, anyway, lest they think he was picking one over the other—shit, that sounded fucked up when he put it into words. They needed to address that. At a later date.

“No, no, this is good,” Natasha said. She dug in the nightstand and tossed a condom at Clint, tearing open the other package she held and giving Phil a wicked smile as she moved toward him, laying the condom on her tongue. Phil sat back, beside Clint, and Natasha moved it, brushing her nose against the base of his penis before all at once swallowing him down. 

Her mouth was warm and moist and maybe the sensation of latex covering him as she went was a little weird but he could deal with it. He clenched his fist in her bedspread to stop from grabbing her hair when the tip of his cock hit the back of her throat.

Clint waved his un-open condom packet at her when she came back up, kissing the top of Phil’s penis as she left.

“Yes, alright, darling,” she said. She took the condom from him, laid it off to one side and reached for the lube lying on the bed, then squirted some on her fingers.

Clint shivered when she squeezed a large dollop right into the crack of his ass, her fingers immediately going to work at spreading it around, one and then two fingers sliding quickly into his hole. Clint groaned, fell back into the pillows, his arms spread out at his sides.

Phil reached for the bottle she’d abandoned while Natasha tore the other packet open. Watched Clint try to buck up when she deep-throated him all at once, held in place only by the hand that she wasn’t pumping in and out of him.

“I’m ready,” Clint gasped.

“Be patient,” Phil said, amused and still slicking himself up.

“Fuck. Patience,” was the responding growl. “Nat. Nat.” Clint reached toward her, beckoning with grasping fingers. Natasha hummed, slipped her fingers out of Clint when Phil tapped her shoulder so he could take over. Then she turned, and went down on Clint again.

Phil slid one and then two fingers into Clint, bending and scissoring them in the warm, slick tunnel. He could feel him clenching from a combination of Natasha’s ministrations and his own. Phil reached his other hand down, and it took a little fumbling but he found Natasha’s clit—managing not to tear that stupid thing she was still wearing as he did it.

She jerked and might’ve gasped, clit swollen, lips wet and slick from her orgasm and arousal.

“I’m gonna—Nat you gotta stop,” Clint said, pushing at her shoulder. She pulled off of him all at once, delicately wiped her lip with the back of her hand.

“Ready?” Phil asked.

“Would you just fuck me already?”

Natasha laughed, stroked a hand across Clint’s chest, then straddled him and, holding herself forward on her arms, kissed Phil. The kiss was all tongue and teeth, her tongue in his mouth, then his in hers, warm and sweet, until she jumped and spun to glare at Clint. She lightly whacked his side with her fingers. Clint’s hands were on her hips, and it looked like he’d pinched her.

“Sorry, Clint,” Phil murmured. He was still fingers-deep in Clint’s ass, though he’d stopped moving them, and he pumped them once, then twice before pulling out and sliding his cock, slowly, slowly, into the prepared canal.

Clint hissed at the same time as Phil let out a long breath because this felt so fucking good and it had been so long and god Clint was so tight around him. He bottomed out, balls brushing against the curve of Clint’s ass.

Natasha put one hand on his shoulder, the other helping her guide herself onto Clint, her eyes shutting as she slid down.

“Good?” Phil murmured.

“Good.” They said in unison.

Phil started moving, slowly, and Natasha’s other hand came up so she was clutching at his shoulders, moving up and down at the same pace as he moved in and out. The three of them breathed heavily, Clint’s hands wrapped around Natasha’s waist, helping lift her up and down, Phil pumping with one hand and working at Natasha’s clit with the other. She let out a cry when he lowered his head and bit down on an already tortured nipple, and one of Clint’s hands travelled up to help him, playing with the other breast.

Natasha was shaking again before long, her head back, ecstasy on her face as she came. Clint started moving faster, jerking his hips upward and Phil had to hold on to his hips with both hands to continue his pumping motion, faster and faster, warm, tense feeling curling in his belly. 

Clint came with a shout, clenching down around Phil and giving him that last bit he needed to make it over the edge, thrusting one last time into Clint and then holding there until the three of them had fully stopped shaking, come down.

He pulled out, and Natasha slipped off of Clint, and they collapsed into a pile together on the pillows. Limp, loved, barely willing to stir even enough to clean up.


	5. Chapter 5

Phil was drifting off to sleep, pressed between Natasha and Clint, when the buzzing of a phone vibrating started up on the nightstand. Natasha’s arm disappeared from around him when she rolled over to look at it.

“Mine. Go back to sleep,” she said. Then, “Romanoff.” 

Her warmth left his side and the bed dipped then rose again as she got up. In the quiet of the room he could barely make out a voice speaking rapidly on the other end, Natasha making noises of agreement at intervals.

“Yes, Sir. I can be there in twenty.” A pause. “Yes, Sir.”

She hung up the phone.

“D’you really have to go in right now?” Clint asked, voice bleary, words slurred together.

“Yes.” Natasha sounded disapproving.

“What’s this about?” Phil asked.

She lifted her shoulders; let them fall again in a slow shrug, leafing through the closet. She pulled out a pair of dress pants and a blouse and Phil bolted upright, alarmed. Clint grumbled beside him, sat up a moment later.

“Natasha?” Phil prompted. She smiled at him—but even in the dim, shuttered light of the bedroom, he could see it didn’t meet her eyes.

“Go to sleep,” she repeated.

Phil rubbed a hand over his face, desperate to know what she’d heard in Hill’s voice that had her pulling out business wear instead of the jeans and leather jacket she usually wore when she wasn’t on a job.

Clint lay back down, tugged on Phil to try and pull him down with him, and made a frustrated noise when he resisted.

“Did she say anything to—”

“Phil,” Natasha snapped. “Calm down.”

In less than five minutes she was ready, shoes on. She kissed his forehead, carded her hand through his hair.

“I’ll be home in a few hours.”

A few hours would be almost midnight again, it was sunset already, but he didn’t say that. Something was up for Hill to call her in so late on a Saturday, and maybe it was just a job but Phil didn’t think so, because Natasha didn’t think so—that much was obvious without words.

She was gone a moment later, only leaning over Phil to give Clint an affectionate tap on the nose (he wrinkled it in response) before she left.

Phil lay back down, threw his arm over Clint, and tried not to think too hard.

But that was impossible when Natasha still hadn’t come home the next morning.

 

Natasha’s absence didn’t seem to bother Clint any, so Phil didn’t bring it up. Their Sunday wasn’t the day he’d been planning, though, and in hindsight he supposed he knew better than to be hopeful things would go as planned—they _never_ went as planned—but disappointment still welled up like quicksand inside of him, threatening to bog him down and fill his lungs and drown him.

They lay on the couch, Clint’s head pillowed on his lap, Phil’s fingers running through his hair. A rerun of a bad cop procedural played on the T.V. Clint sat up, abruptly, when the show flipped to commercial.

“Let’s go for a run,” he said. Phil raised an eyebrow.

“At 3 in the afternoon?”

“Why not?” Clint did a couple of squats, jeans pulling tight against his gluts. Phil tore his gaze away.

“Alright,” he said. 

They changed into workout gear, and if it was almost an hour later by the time they made it outside, well, it wasn’t like they had anywhere to be.

 

“Hey,” Phil prompted, jogging in place while they waited to cross Broadway. Clint looked over at him, tugging rapidly at the sweat-soaked neck of his t-shirt to fan himself. “Natasha said something a couple nights ago, thought you could shed some light on what she might’ve meant.”

The light changed and they sped up and crossed, Phil a bit in front of Clint, leaving a path for people to walk in the opposite direction. He could feel Clint’s gaze on his ass.

“Yeah? What about?”

“Not bowing down and acquiescing to Hill’s dictatorship anymore?” he couldn’t keep the question out of his voice and cursed himself for it.

Clint darted in front of him, spun and jogged backward. An expression of concern rested on his face.

“Yeah, we talked ‘bout it.”

“She seemed rather set. A little vicious, even.”

“Mother bear,” Clint said with a laugh. He sobered quickly. “But now she’s stuck at HQ and not contacting us, so who the fuck knows?” Clint almost ran over a woman walking her Pomeranian, saved only by Phil reaching out and grabbing his shoulder to pull him out of the way. Clint gripped the hand, squeezing his fingers.

“We’re trying to avoid you getting dragged into this as more than our handler.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think you do. Nat said I was being stupid, but I think you think we’re leaving you behind, or something.”

They’d stopped running now, and their muscles were going to seize up if they didn’t start moving again or cool down properly, but Phil’s feet might as well have been glued to the pavement. Clint was perceptive. So damn perceptive, and Phil needed to make a practice of recognising that outside of work.

“I absolutely do not feel that way.”

“Bullshit.”

He shouldn’t be feeling defensive, but Clint was stirring up everything he’d been trying not to feel, everything he’d been telling himself it was stupid and irrational to feel. Everything that said that he was the third wheel; that reminded him it was so easy for people to see Natasha and Clint as a pair, but Phil, Phil was always somewhere in the background.

Clint grabbed his other hand, limp by his side, squeezed them both, then let them fall. “Not blaming you. I know I’d feel the same. So would Nat. Shit, we are, we do, okay? And we’re trying to keep things the same, but Nat’s so fucking worried…”

Phil shook his head, smiled, and Clint trailed off. “Natasha needs to worry a bit more about her self, and a bit less about me, I think.”

“Tell her that.”

They started walking, Phil grimacing at the stiffness in his legs, hopping and trying to rotate his ankles to warm them up again.

“What it comes down to,” Phil said at length. “Is what we want to do.”

“We don’t want to get you fired, Phil. Even Fury, wherever the fuck he is, wouldn’t be able to let this go. We _know_ we’re breaking rules.” Phil opened his mouth with a mind to protest, though he didn’t know what he was going to say. Clint spoke over him before he could figure it out. “Me and Nat, whatever, they were willing to let it go until this whole crusade. You? Shit, I know we’ve never talked about it, but it’s a fucking damn good way to land you in a hearing and fired, or all of us scattered to the corners of the earth or something.

“Never mind the fucking mandatory psych sessions.” He mock shivered, almost knocked Phil over what he punched him lightly on the shoulder, Phil too focused on his tirade to be very aware of much else.

They hadn’t talked about it. They _didn’t_ talk about it. They were all adults, none of them were naïve. They knew what they were doing, what it meant, what it _could_ mean.

Acted on it anyway, because their lives were dangerous and could end any day, and they’d been through enough together. And maybe this wasn’t the true, natural progression of the bonds they’d forged in blood and gunfire, but it worked for them. Kept them happy and sane and maybe not _well_ -adjusted, but at least _adjusted_.

They’d barely made it through the apartment door at the end of their run before Clint pressed him into the wall, lips at his throat, biting and sucking and licking at the sweaty skin. Phil’s head banged off the wall as it fell back, muscles loosening all at once. He fumbled the deadbolt shut beside him.

“Bedroom,” he managed to grunt when Clint went for his running shorts. He moved, wrinkled his nose at a whiff of himself. “Actually, shower.”

 

Phil’s first destination Monday morning was Natasha’s quarters at S.H.I.E.L.D. Her absence didn’t surprise him too much, and had the added benefit of allowing him a quick search of the cabinet beside the bed and a leaf through her closet. No papers, though, except for a few blank requisition forms. All he’d expected to find. If he hadn’t known what she’d worn into the office Saturday night (the blouse and pants hung in the closet), he wouldn’t have known she’d been there recently at all.

Phil searched two more places—the bullpen where her desk was, and one of the lower gyms—before finding her in the cafeteria, reading a book and sipping a coffee. 

“Been to your office yet?” she asked in lieu of a greeting when he set his breakfast tray down across from her and sat down. He lifted a bowl of oatmeal from it and placed it in front of her. She raised an eyebrow, but accepted brown sugar and a spoon as well.

“I stopped there briefly,” he said, thinking of the pile of folders on his desk and seeing them in a new light with the sour expression Natasha wore.

“I’ll walk back with you and we can discuss,” she said, for all the world like she had read his mind. More than curiosity, dread swelled within him.

 

Phil had suspected this week would go as swimmingly as the last few had (was jovial sarcasm the same as being in good humour?) and while he hadn’t wanted to be proven right before Monday noon, he was good at hunches.

“It doesn’t make any sense to dig this back out.”

The file Natasha had alluded to over breakfast lay spread open on his desk, pages and pages scattered and laid over one another. Natasha sat across from him, tapping her fingernails on her knee. She didn’t have tells. She was pretending, and that alarmed him.

“It does, with certain parameters.”

He glanced up at her. Frowned. Tried to follow her train of thought.

“Can you elaborate?”

Natasha leaned forward, arms crossed, elbows propped up on the desk. She bowed her head a moment, and when she raised it again there was a tight smile on her lips. 

“Doubt has been cast on your impartiality where Barton and I are concerned. That is a problem, Coulson.” He nodded in agreement, gestured for her to continue. “This incident occurred sixteen months ago. If you’ll recall, at the time there was more than the normal level of contention over how the situation could have gone better.”

He remembered. A civilian had died on that operation, an innocent bystander shot by Natasha’s own gun, though it hadn’t been in her hand at the time. The inquiries had gone on for months, had only been wrapped up for a couple of weeks before the Battle of New York.

“You were cleared to go back on active duty.”

She nodded. “At your behest.”

Phil dropped back in his chair, the impact jerking up through his spine. “And if I’m no longer seen as impartial…”

She nodded again.

“This has to stop.”

“Phil—”

“I’m going to talk to Director Hill.”

“No, you’re not,” she said, calm. “You’re going to sit back down, and you’re going to think this through. This will pass.”

He hadn’t realised he’d stood, and he sat back down, slowly, aware this wasn’t anything he should tackle while angry—or maybe at all—but burning to do something and to put things back the way they should be.

“This is…” Natasha rose, tapped the file on the desk. “Review it,” she murmured. “I can get them to back down on this, but I want you to stay out of it except for where you’re required to take part as the head of the operation.”

She smiled at him from the doorway.

“This will pass, darling. But it will be a practice in… asceticism until it does.”

Asceticism. 

A perfect word to describe Phil’s going home alone that night. Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did warn that there was a very, very abrupt ending!
> 
> They're pretty resigned at this point, but I'll be writing something to follow it all up, maybe from a different POV.
> 
> Thanks for all the kudos!
> 
> http://shieldivarius.tumblr.com


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